[lbo-talk] A Delphi worker on Delphi

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Wed Nov 2 07:14:46 PST 2005



> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >GM, Delphi, etc., *if* they lose their attacks on unions, have an
> >incentive to push for national health insurance; if they win and
> >bust unions (through lockouts) or cut unionized auto workers' wages
> >and benefits (through the UAW's concessions) to the level of
> >meatpacking workers', they won't have any incentive to push for it
> >AT ALL.
>
> Shouldn't the union be taking the lead on this, rather than hoping
> that some dying industrial dinosaurs might? It's hard to imagine a
> Wal-Mart associate getting behind the struggle of $100,000/year
> autoworkers as long as the autoworkers' struggle isn't presented as
> a broad class project.
>
> Doug

The top leaders of the UAW aren't interested in "a broad class project." Given a chance, they would sacrifice Delphi workers in order to save GM workers, as Gregg Shotwell suspects, except that concessions to Delphi will only embolden GM rather than mollify it, contrary to what they hope for.

Autoworkers can fight back only if they manage to build horizontal communication networks among militants in different locals, networks strong enough to push the UAW to take on that "broad class project."

Anyhow, defeat of autoworkers -- especially a defeat as decisive as meatpacking workers' -- will dim the prospect of national health insurance in the near future considerably. To the extent that autoworkers and other industrial workers can sock health care costs to corporations, they give the rest of us -- including those of us who work for Wal-Mart -- political leverage to fight for national health insurance. Their fight is our fight.

Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org> * Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/mahmoud- ahmadinejads-face.html>; <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/chvez- congratulates-ahmadinejad.html>; <http://montages.blogspot.com/ 2005/06/iranian-working-class-rejects.html>



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